Doris Violet Blair, later Doris Bourguignon (1915-2011) was a British 20th century artist who worked in a range of media. She is possibly best known for her depictions of life in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Biography

Blair was born in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

and studied at the Belfast College of Art and at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

. During World War II she worked for the Ministry of Information in the Postal Censorship department. Blair also painted scenes of bomb damage in Belfast and portraits of some of the British and American troops stationed there. Furthermore, she submitted a proposal to the

War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artis ...

to record the activities of women who had entered the industrial workforce for the war effort. The WAAC Committee didn't act on that proposal but later in the conflict did purchase a number of watercolours from Blair depicting women officers. After the war, Blair had a solo exhibition of her work in 1948 at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. Leaving Belfast she studied in New York under the painter Wallace Harrison and then in Paris with

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

and

André Lhote André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes, and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art. Early life and education Lhote was bor ...

. By 1975, Blair was living in Belgium and, working in a largely abstract style, she had a solo show in Brussels. During the 1990s, Blair settled in London and continued to paint, mostly working in acrylics. In 1982 the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures ...

acquired a collection of her watercolours from World War II.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Doris 1915 births 2011 deaths 20th-century British painters 20th-century women artists from Northern Ireland Alumni of the Royal College of Art Alumni of Ulster University Artists from Belfast British modern painters World War II artists 20th-century British war artists 20th-century British women painters